Branded promotional products include advertising, sales promotion and marketing communications media that use merchandise imprinted with an advertiser's identification, message or logo. These items effectively communicate a brand identity or a message and are used to create brand awareness, solidify customer relations and increase sales. The branded promotional products sector of the advertising industry provides unique marketing opportunities. Branded products are easy to understand and are useful in meeting many marketing objectives such as announcing a name change or building a company image.
The personal touch inherent in gift giving makes branded product advertising a high-impact tool when used in conjunction with other media. Typical uses include building brands, launching products, introducing reminder advertising, improving customer relations, generating new customers and/or accounts, increasing traffic and awareness at trade shows, safety programs, annual meetings, seasonal events, public relations, employee relations, and other advertising and marketing uses.
Branded promotional products are adopting a more active role in marketing as mass media such as print and television integrate with other promotional efforts. Because branded products provide a personal touch, they are effective and important marketing tools.
Customers increasingly expect more value from their purchasing experience with a high quality product that promotes their brand. They want a useful product obtained through a convenient transaction. Customers are often frustrated because they have to rely on a reseller for purchasing options and the flow of information. Resellers are expected to find customers favorable prices, produce samples and ensure timely delivery.
Currently, vendor partners have little or no contact with customers and rely on resellers to reach customers. Vendor partners spend significant amounts of effort and money providing price quotes and samples to resellers. It is difficult for vendor partners to gather product or customer market research and customer buying pattern information.
Traditionally, the promotional products industry has operated under a linear supply-chain model of distribution. Typically, the customer hires a reseller to assist in selecting a branded product for an event or promotion. The reseller locates the desired merchandise through established vendor partner relationships. The vendor partner manufacturers or imports the items, adds the brand, and ships the product. Business service partners provide services such as shipping, financing, and insurance. Media partners deliver educational and other useful information.
Thus, a comprehensive solution for all members of the promotional products industry that includes high quality products, current and accurate information, and support services with the result that the end user has a consistent, reliable and productive experience is needed.
Promotional products have widely been used to promote a brand name or image, build customer awareness and/or announce a presence in an industry. Branded promotional products may include advertising, sales promotion and marketing communications media. These products generally include various types of merchandise imprinted with an advertiser's identification, message or logo. The branded promotional products sector of the advertising industry provides unique marketing opportunities. Branded products are easy to understand and useful in meeting many marketing objectives, such as announcing a name change or building a company image.
Customers seek high quality products that effectively promote their brand and logo. They want a useful product obtained through a convenient transaction. However, customers are often frustrated because they have to rely on a reseller (or distributor) for purchasing options and the flow of information. Generally, resellers are expected to find customers favorable prices, produce samples and ensure timely delivery.
Currently, vendors have little or no contact with customers and rely on resellers (or distributors) to reach customers. Vendors spend significant amounts of effort and money providing price quotes and samples to resellers (or distributors). It is difficult for vendors to gather product or customer market research, customer buying pattern information, and other customer related information.
Traditionally, the promotional products industry has operated under a linear supply-chain model of distribution. Typically, a customer hires a reseller (or distributor) to assist in selecting a branded product for an event or promotion. The reseller locates the desired merchandise through established vendor partner relationships. The vendor manufacturers or imports the items, adds the brand, and ships the product. In addition, a second vendor may add the process which may include branding. Business service partners provide services such as shipping, financing, and insurance. Media partners deliver educational and other useful information. Similar problems arise in other industries as well.
Currently, a standard method for purchasing products (e.g., branded promotional products) has been difficult to implement due to the uniqueness of products and enormous number of possible product and process combinations. For example, a company or other entity may regularly purchase promotional products for advertisement, brand awareness and other purposes. In addition, a company may promote new products on a regular basis and make frequent improvements on current products. Therefore, repeated orders for promotional products may be required for similar products with different printing processes, for example. Similarly, the same or similar printing process may be used on different products. Due to the overlap in items and processes, inefficiencies may occur when ordering promotional or other products, especially when orders are frequently repeated. Typically, each process is stored with each item. As a result, it may become inefficient and redundant to store each process with each item when the processes may be the same or similar.
Oftentimes, a vendor (or distributor) may attempt to define all possible product stock keeping units (“SKUs”) when presenting promotional products options to a customer. An SKU is a number or identifier associated with a product for inventory purposes. This creates inefficiencies and duplicated efforts because the product does not become a SKU until the item and process are combined. Presently, there is no standard method of specifying promotional products because they are so varied and numerous.
In other industries, a service or product provider may order supplies and inventory on a regular basis. Such industries may include office supplies, furniture, aviation supplies, marine supplies, interior design, beauty salon and spa supplies, medical office supplies, restaurant and bar supplies, gift shops and clothing boutique, and other industries where orders for various products or requests for services may be placed. Similarly, inefficiencies develop due to the overlap of analogous orders and purchases over time.
These and other drawbacks exist with current systems.